


Rebel Antics and Porg Tales

by sakurazawa, Sathya



Category: Star Wars, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: A little bit of flirting, Anthology, BrokenPieces-verse, F/M, GreaseJawa, PorgLordSolo, Really a bit of everything, Snippets, a whole lot of character exploration, character moments, porgtales, rebelantics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-23
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-08 16:06:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13461717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakurazawa/pseuds/sakurazawa, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sathya/pseuds/Sathya
Summary: A collection of bits and pieces, imaginings, character studies, and scene snippits from the Broken Pieces-verse.  How did the Falcon find a home again after Craite?  Where did Ben's childhood nickname, "Little Starship" come from?  Why is Spoon so angry all the time?  Find these answers and more.





	1. A Place to Call Home

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Art of Broken Pieces](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13060209) by [sakurazawa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakurazawa/pseuds/sakurazawa), [Sathya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sathya/pseuds/Sathya). 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which the Falcon finds a place to go after Craite, and we meet Vara for the first time.

Vara pulled her battered X-wing up alongside the Correllian cruiser, heart thundering so hard in her chest she might have been in a dog fight. This was the Resistance. This was all that was left of it. The only certainty aboard that ship was general Leia Organa, and the young woman who had hailed them—the girl whose name had trickled through the Resistance channels for the past several week cycles. 

Information that had come to them had been scanty—their own sensors too weak to send a return message to Crait without the relay they’d lost in the assault from Starkiller base. But then the message had slipped in over the Princess’ secret channel. A call for aid. A ship on the run. 32 weary, cramped passengers and a handful of light fighters scooped up in another system.

Vara hadn’t been the only one who’d cried, and she wasn’t the only fighter sent out to fall in escort of the Millennium Falcon.

The descent was rapid, twisting and diving between cliffs so tight together it sent a thrill of worry as the Falcon’s pilot took the first narrow crack at speed. Whoever it was, they were damn good, and she grinned a bit as she swept her x-wing around the familiar bends, feeling a swell of pride. This was the Resistance. They were small. But they were good.

Her father would have been proud.

Zooming in beneath the waterfall that covered the hangar do or to their base, Vara let out a shout over the coms.

“This is Smoke, Delta Base. I got our bird, safe and sound!”

 Setting the falcon down slowly on the tarmac of the large hangar, Poe leaned back in the seat and finally allowed his hands to unclench from the controls.  Exhaustion burned behind his eyes, but damn, it was good to find solid ground.  Ever since they had first been hailed, spirits on board the Falcon had been riding high.  For weeks they had felt so alone, drifting aimlessly.  Now a sense of returning purpose shivered through the stragglers from Craite.

Looking out through the transparisteel windows, Poe saw a medley of ships of all types, and at least half of them bearing the familiar crest of the Republic Navy.  His heart tightened in his chest, emotions swimming without the control of proper sleep.  He wondered if there were anyone out there he knew... it had been so hard to think about old friends when news of the destruction of the Republic worlds had reached them.  How many had died there, men and women with whom he had served, laughed, trained... gone in a moment of childish destruction.

Shaking away the thoughts, he rose slowly to his feet, hearing calling voices echoing down the corridors of the Falcon as the battered remnant of the resistance made their way into the arms of the new companions who had brought them home.  Home for now, at least.

Scrubbing a hand through his hair he paced slowly through the ship, checking bunks and occasionally finding a hiding porg buried in quickly abandoned blankets.  Many of them had shared the duty of flying over the last weeks, but he had brought them in, and that made the Captain's responsibility his.  First on, last off.  Make sure the others make it.

He caught himself standing in the now-empty lounge and looking at nothing as Chewie came up beside him and chuffed at him in concern.  

"I'm good, buddy.  I'm good.... we're all good."  He smiled tiredly and accepted the awkward hug, getting a mouthful of wookie fur.  "Come on, let's go meet our new family."

They walked down the cargo ramp together, and Poe blinked back tears as he saw the tired joy written on the faces of the friends around him as they hugged strangers, being led off to find real food and beds.

Vara had taken the hands of a young woman with near-black skin and a cloud of kinky black hair, squeezing her fingers as she sobbed recklessly in relief. Sympathetic tears rose in Vara’s eyes—she knew that relief. That grief and misery, long held at bay as the impetus to just survive, survive.  Survival kept you going until you were strung out tight as a string across the universe. Then the instant your boots hit solid ground and your shoulders found a safe roof to slump beneath, snap.  
  
She took the girl’s tear-soaked face in both hands and pulled her forehead down, pressing hers together. “You’re all home now,” she said, her own voice thick. “You’re home.”  
  
It had been what they said to her. Weeks, flying around space in a Republic Navy x-wing, feeling like there was a giant target on her back, fearing to stop for fuel. She’d turned off her life support for as long as she could stand it—made it a game to see how long she could go before the oxygen got thin and the spots came in, or she lost the feeling in her toes. She’d power up just long enough to get a message out, cycle the air through, and warm up her stinging feet.  
  
Six days, she’d done it, before more fleet stragglers—caught on patrol when the core worlds blew—caught her distress frequency and swooped in to tow her along. It wasn’t until they’d found Delta Base, swooped through atom and dived through that ravine, beneath that waterfall, and hit the solid, sparkling granite floor that she’d really been able to process what happened. The core planets, gone. The Republic, gone. Her father, home for a brief stay between expeditions...gone.  
  
She snatched up one of the blankets and wrapped it around the shocked young woman’s shoulders, shepherding her into the arms of a medic. Turning around, she thought to seek out General Organa. Just to see her, and maybe catch a glimpse of the Jedi girl.  
  
Instead, her eyes landed on a familiar face. One she’d never expected to see again.  
  
“Captain...” she said, though it came out as a choked whisper. He was probably commander now—promoted first by the Navy, then by the Resistance when he’d defected, but it didn’t matter. To her, he would always have one name.  
  
“Captain Dameron!” She shouted. And suddenly she was in motion. She skidded around people, ducking and dodging and hurling herself hard into her erstwhile mentor’s chest, feeling years of tied up emotions suddenly spilling out.

Poe barely had time to bring his arms up as the girl launched herself into him, hitting his chest hard and causing him to stagger back.  If she had been any taller they both might have crashed backwards, but as it was Chewie's hands stabilized his shoulders and he was suddenly breathing in a cloud of dark hair.  He hadn't even had the chance to see her face, but clearly she knew him.  He held her, her feet barely touching the ground as he patted her back awkwardly, glancing around for help.

He met Leia's eyes across the crowd that was gathering, but she simply smiled fondly and shook her head--he would find no help there.  

"Ah... It's good to see you again..."  He pried her off gently, holding her at arms length and trying to get a good look at her.  She was familiar, but it took him a moment to catch up to old memories.  She had been so different, a young and reckless teenager at the academy, a trainee.  She had grown into herself, and grease and tears smudged her dark cheeks.  "Vara?"  

Vara laughed, releasing his jacket long enough to drag a hand across her eyes. “Captain!” she said. “I thought you were dead for sure. After what happened with the dreadnaught—we heard... but you’re...” She tossed herself back into his chest and hugged him. “You’re home,” she finished. “You’re all home now.”

He hugged her back this time, relief flooding through him as the words hit him.  And a familiar face, a familiar voice, one nearly forgotten.  She represented all those he had thought were gone, and hope blossomed in him again.  "We are."  He said quietly into her hair.  "And we're not defeated."  He closed his eyes, swaying slightly as the 48 hours he had gone since sleeping hit him all at once.  Adrenaline had been fueling him since the first messages had reached them, and as an unfamiliar sense of safety hit him it flooded out of him in a rush.

“Whoa, okay,” she said, catching more of his weight. “You were flying? Sorry I put you through the ringer. Come on. I’ll show you where you can crash.”  
  
She brooked no argument, but hooked him around the waist and pulled him down the passage after the other exhausted Resistance refugees. Part of her wanted to drag him to her room, let him sleep somewhere that felt lived-in, with more than just the utilitarian necessities stocked into the rooms frantically prepared for the sudden influx. But it wouldn’t be right to separate him from the others. More than physical comfort, Vara knew he would need to be near his people—close enough to reach out to them, yes, but more importantly, close enough that they could reach him. It had been his way, as a Captain. Accessible, vibrant.  
  
Pissed off at being on military leave, but game to take on a semester whipping recruits into order.  
  
She should have been surprised he remembered her name. But she wasn’t. Vara had done her best to make an impression. He’d been the first instructor that really made her want to earn respect. Before that, it was just a hard-edged desire to fight back, the need to tear a hole in the stars, like she could reach through it and drag back the mother that was gone, or the sense of safety that had gone with it.  
  
“This one’s empty,” she said, kicking the door sensor with one small foot. The door hissed and depressurized. She pushed it open. “We have to keep air pressure, because otherwise the humidity in the tunnels creeps in and we end up with mold problems. It’s warm, though, and quiet. God, they didn’t give you enough blankets.” She shoved him toward the bed. “Sit. I’ll get you more. Are you hungry? You should probably eat something before you completely crash out.”

He laughed at her enthusiasm, shaking his head.  "I'm fine, kid.  Really.  It's just been a long day for all of us, but damn it's good to see you."  Familiar voices drifted through the hallways, voices he knew by name from their long fight together.  Tonight they would all sleep safe and warm in real beds.  "I'm sure there are people worse off than me who need looking after."

“Have you seen your face?” She said, perching a fist on her hip. He looked at her, those half-lidded eyes sunken, face working on two days of scruff, the lines of his shoulders slack with exhaustion. Still gorgeous. Better than her memory, which she’d been certain was the exaggeration of youth. But it hadn’t been. And memory was never a substitute for the real thing—memory didn’t have weight and warmth. Memory didn’t breathe and smell so amazingly human. She couldn’t step forward and take a memory’s face in her hands.

“You look like hell, Captain. Or Commander. Or whatever it is now. I don’t care. You’re getting soup, and at least two more blankets. Then I’m going to find that skinny black girl with all the hair. She needs to rehydrate. You probably need to rehydrate.”  
  
She pointed at a locker-sized door in the wall. “Refresher unit’s in there. Back in ten. Stay.”

She hurried out before he could get a word in to answer and Poe stared after her, slightly flummoxed.  She was a feisty thing, he remembered that from the days when it seemed like she refused to take a single order.  He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose with tired fingers.  He had been so frustrated and amused by her...  and now he understood a little more where she had been coming from. 

Stripping out of the dirty clothes that he had been wearing for weeks, he stepped into the refresher and let the water wash over him.  God, it felt so good.  He briefly mused over the idea of trying to sleep standing up, right where he was, but gave up on that plan quickly.  Scrubbing clean he moved back into the small room and looked around for a change of clothes.  

Giving up, Poe dragged himself to the bed and flopped onto it naked, mostly managing to pull one of the thin blankets sort of over him before falling instantly asleep.

****

When he woke he was tangled into the blankets, one arm draped off the side of the bed and sore in every muscle.  Slowly he sat up and stretched, face stiff and eyes blurry.  He rubbed at them as he stood and dressed in the clothes that Vara must have brought in while he was sleeping.  They fit well enough, though it felt strange to be in navy colors again.  That had been a different part of his life, one he had walked away from in frustration and hotheaded anger.  If he had not, would he have been on one of those worlds?  Dead in a moment of panic with billions of others?

Shaking off the heavy thought, Poe ran his fingers through his tangled hair and went out to see if he could find his companions.  He needed to find Finn and Rey, to make sure they had settled in alright.  He needed to find Leia, and figure out their next steps.  There was only so much time that they could rest and recover.  There was still a war to be won.

Finn watched, impressed, as Rey hunched over her food, eating like someone was about to steal it. He’d eaten the porridge and fried strips of wild game with gusto, but slowed down at the weird green on his plate. Mechanically spearing forkfuls of the nubbly, bitter vegetable, he ate it, though his tastebuds rebelled. Neither he nor Rey had extensively-tested palates, between bland Stormtrooper protein gruel and her uninteresting and unidentified “portions”, it seemed like everywhere they turned there was a new flavor to discover. But while Finn’s tongue seemed to rebel at anything too strong, Rey seemed to crave it.  
  
Finn choked down another bite, grimaced, and tipped the rest into Rey’s bowl. She looked up at him, eyes luminous with the pure pleasure of food, and caught the lingering grimace on his face. She chuckled, and happily shoveled in the rest of his breakfast.  
  
Sighing, Finn lifted his cup of khav. He should check on Rose. He wasn’t sure where the base’s med bay was, but someone could tell him. He scanned the tables and caught eyes gazing at him. No, gazing at Rey. Curiously. Well, that was to be expected. Everyone wanted to know about her.  
  
He bristled protectively, scrutinizing the girl over his khava cup. She was around his age, short, like Leia, with skin somewhere between his and Poe’s in shade. Poe—that’s where he’d seen her. She was the pilot who’d hit Poe like a proton torpedo back in the hangar. She had a dusky purple flightsuit on, with a set of Republic Navy patches he didn’t know. Some sort of special unit.  
  
She noticed him watching and met his gaze, seeming to be utterly unshy about being caught watching Rey. Instead, she flashed a sharp grin and saluted him with a forkful of the bitter green veg. Finn frowned, not sure whether she was teasing him. She looked awfully young to have a special units patch—his or Rey’s age. But she knew Poe, and Poe had been navy.  
  
And then he appeared, as if invoked by a thought. Looking clean and still slightly groggy, Poe entered the small mess hall with a gait somewhere between stumble and swagger. Finn raised a hand and waved.

Lifting a hand in acknowledgement, Poe wound between groups of people to where Finn and Rey were seated, half shoving Finn off the narrow bench as he sat down beside him.  "Good to see you both up and about."  He grinned, raising an eyebrow in Rey's direction.  "I don't know where you put it, Ace.  Careful, or you'll stop fitting in that in that pretty little flightsuit of yours."  Reaching over he snagged a bubbly green vegetable off the end of her fork before it could reach her mouth and popped into his own.  

"Fuck!"  He spluttered, making a face.  "What is that shit?"

“The only edible plant that grows on this planet,” said a familiar voice behind them. Finn banged his knee twisting around to face General Organa, who stood behind them, looking somehow dignified with her tray of food and too-large uniform.  
  
He scrambled to offer his seat, but Leia waved him down. “I didn’t make it this far without knowing how to walk around a table,” she said. She sat opposite Poe, accepting a cup of khav Rey poured from one of the table’s carafes.  
  
“I hate to bring this up so quickly, but there’s really no time to delay,” she said. “We’ve lost contact with many of our supporters. We’ve lost everything we had except what’s here. We need to grow. We need ships, and people, and the means to take care of them.”  
  
She glanced down at Rey and Finn, but her attention seemed mostly to focus on Poe, as if expecting him to know what she was talking about. Finn frowned. They’d have to hide for a while, do some reconnaissance, get supplies...it was work, and they needed plans, but Leia seemed to be handing Poe a problem that Finn couldn’t quite decode.

Poe nodded, chewing on his lower lip thoughtfully as he reached sideways and snagged Finn's mug out of his hands before he could react.  Taking a long swallow of the strong, dark drink, he curled his fingers around the warm mug as he considered. 

"We have to assume that if this outpost heard our message, others did as well.  We'll need to establish supply routes with colonies that are still loyal to the resistance.  I think we should send out a few volunteers to check lines we used to use, find out what's still viable from our old network.  Without infrastructure we can't grow responsibly."

Leia nodded. “There’s a more practical concern,” she said. “Something we need to get any of this working.” She took a bite of the bitter gourd, grimaced delicately, and set down her fork. “Money. After the Hosnian system’s destruction, we don’t know who or where our benefactors are.”

"And if we don't have any, how do we make money of our own."  Poe sighed, one hand coming up to rub the bridge of his nose.  "It's not like we can just print it."  

Glancing past her, he watched the group of navy pilots chatting at their table.  Vara was the only face which was familiar.  "There have to be plenty of people who had family and friends on the core worlds, they'll be burning for a chance to stick it to the First Order.  We need covert ways of making contact, of reaching out."  A sudden glint came to his eyes and he made a considering sound.  "Or... maybe not so covert."  He grinned widely and pointed at Rey.

"We put her on the holo.  We create a broadcast that goes out across the galaxy, everywhere we can put it. Untraceable, but public as hell.  We show the First Order  _and_  our supporters that the resistance doesn't die that easily."

"What?” Rey said. She held up her hands, warding off the idea. “No. No, that is never happening.”  
  
But Leia’s eyes had started to sparkle, the corners of her lips turning up. “Now that...is an excellent idea, Poe.” She glanced at Rey. “And don’t worry—it won’t just be you. I think the galaxy has had quite enough of scripted propaganda. What they need to know is how we’re just like them, and why we fight, and how important that is. There’s no better way to do that than to go straight to the source.” She swept a hand behind her, indicating the rest of the people assembled in the mess hall. “We all have our reasons. Let’s stop keeping them a secret.”

Poe's grin widened, and he winked at Rey.  "Come on, Ace.  You never wanted to be a movie star?"  Standing and handing the now-empty pilfered mug back to Finn, he grabbed her hands and pulled her to her feet.  "The Jedi and the resistance, the hope of the galaxy!"  He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and stretched a hand out in front of them, painting a picture.  "Wild little girls everywhere will dream of growing up to be you," 

He ducked away and pulled Finn up in a similar fashion, positioning him next to Rey.  

"And clearly little boys everywhere will dream of growing up to be... me."  He punched Finn in the shoulder playfully.

“Right, yeah. Funny,” Finn said. “They want to be you because they know it’s impossible to achieve my level of perfection.”  
  
Rey slithered out from under Poe’s arm. “I don’t want people to want to be me! And anyway, no one really believes I can use the Force. Not unless they’ve already seen it.”  
  
Leia was smiling up at them, a glassy look in her eyes. “I think there are some who already do,” she said. “You can’t keep stories from spreading—it’s what they do. You also can’t control how they change. Trust me, I’m well aware of how different most stories of the Rebellion are to the actual reality. There’s a surprising amount of waiting around in war.” She sipped her kahva. “Poe, see if you can find someone around here who knows about the communications systems. Get someone started setting up a reel. We’ll interview everyone, and use the best stories. No names, except the one’s the First Order already knows.”

"Yes, General."  Poe replied smartly with a smile and a teasing salute.  "I'll see what I can find."

Leaving Rey and Finn squabbling over Rey's level of infamy, Poe navigated towards the table where Vara was seated and slid in next to her with a wave at her companions.  

"Hey, Kid, I've got a question.  You know the situation around here, I need a little help with a... project."


	2. Cookies and Starships

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which little Ben earns the cutest nickname ever.

The senate meeting had been long. Very long, and very tense, and so dense with cultural and political pitfalls that Leia was almost surprised there had been safe ground to tread. Eighty-seven systems were bidding for the privilege of becoming the New Republic’s capital, and each one had the right to present its bid in person. The presentations hadn’t even started, but the arguments had. Each world jockeyed for a position in the order, whether that was near the beginning—where they could set the bar, apply their persuasion to senate minds not-yet wearied by the process—or near the end, with the advantage of seeing the offerings of the previous systems and tailoring their own presentations accordingly.

No one wanted the middle, and the accusations of favoritism were already slashing about with abandon. This world had the greater need. That one had greater resource to provide. The other had made such sacrifice for the success of the Rebellion...

The last thing Leia wanted right now was a dazed-looking governess, staring at a dismantled holonet-restrictor as if it had fallen apart all on it’s own. The woman blinked at Leia’s arrival, then looked around, coming back to herself in time to realize that her charge was ominously absent.

Leia sighed, pressed two fingers between her eyebrows, and waved away the immediate deluge of apologies.

“It’s not your fault,” she said, though part of her wanted to snap at the woman. _He’s five years old, for heaven’s sake._ It wasn’t fair to her. A small child with an instinctive grasp of the Force and an as-yet undeveloped understanding of his own actions...it was a recipe for dazed governesses.

_Bantha shit. Han doesn’t have the Force, and this never happens when he’s here. Or Chewie. Or Holdo_. She bid the woman a good night and waved her on her way, remembering Luke’s words about mind-tricks and the weak-willed. “I’ll find him.”

With a muted sense of exhausted resignation, Leia pulled the robe of state from her shoulders and strode into the sprawl of airy rooms in search of her son.

Ben was contentedly settled onto the floor in the middle of his playroom, bits and pieces of dismantled ship models strewn about him and his mostly finished ice cream cone propped up in the lap of his favorite stuffed wookie.  It was only right to share, after all, and since governess Clarinda had been kind enough to fetch the ice cream in the first place, it was a shame to let it go to waste.  

He was puzzling through how to put the little x-wing back together when he felt her approaching, rippling through his senses, loud shoes making quick sounds on the floor.  Scrambling to his feet he checked around him quickly, to see if there was anything about that might lead her to find a reason to scold.  Nope, there didn't appear to be anything, his clothes were even mostly unwrinkled.  Scooping up the rest of the ice cream--the stuffed wookie hadn't seemed interested-- he presented it to her proudly as she entered.

It would have been too convenient for Ben to be doing something easily-punishable. Instead, when she opened the door, he was already there, waiting for her with a grin and a gift. He was happy to see her, happy she was home, and her frustration melted like the runny, half-eaten treat he held out to her.  
  
“Oh, is this for me?” she said, crouching down. She accepted the soggy cone in one hand, the energetic embrace of her son with her other arm. Neither were safe for her gown, but it didn’t really matter at this point. She scooped Ben up, feeling his little legs winding around her as she kissed his sticky cheek. “I thought you’d be in bed by now,” she said, not adding that seeing him was almost worth the broken rules. She’d seen too little of her baby since this whole bidding war had begun.

Tangling his fingers into the collar of the boring dress that she wore, Ben shook his head vehemently.  "It's not time for bed!"  He insisted.  "I haven't finished rebuilding the fifth fleet..."  He looked down at the scattered pieces of model ships strewn across the floor.  "They got ambushed.  It wasn't pretty."

“I’m sure it was a valiant fight,” she said, carrying him out into the hall. “Didn’t Governess Clarinda tell you It was bed-time? Even Generals need to sleep.”

"She did not."  He said quite matter-of-factly.  "I don't think she's a very good governess."  He looked up at his mother, eyes wide.  "I think you should make her go to work for you, and you should stay home with me."

Leia flinched. “I would love that,” she said. “But if she can’t govern a five year old boy, I don’t think she’ll do a very good job governing whole planets full of people.”  
  
She handed off the melted cone to the silvery cleaning droid and continued down the hallway to the kitchen. She wanted to forget about it, to just give up for the night and stop trying to make everyone follow the rules. For once, it would have been nice to just sit down on the sofa with her son, eat cocoa biscuits together, and ignore the fact that she knew exactly how he’d gotten that ice cream, why he hadn’t been shepherded into bed, and what had given Governess Clarinda that look of glazed confusion.  
  
But she couldn’t do that. If there was one thing Leia knew, it was responsibility. And what she’d said about Clarinda was true enough for herself. If she couldn’t govern a five year old...  
  
“So tell me, Ben. Did Clarinda give you that ice cream, or did you tell her to give it to you?”

Ben wrinkled his nose, thinking carefully through the question.  "Both?  I told her to give it to me, and she gave it to me."  He kicked his feet, trying to squirm out of her arms. "Can we go to the holopark tomorrow?  You said you would take me." 

They stepped into the kitchen, which was warm and white and opened onto a breakfast nook with a view of Chandrilla’s Senate Square. Leia frowned, setting her wriggling son on the kitchen counter. His subject-change was a clear signal, either of guilt or a future as a politician. Probably both.  
  
“We’ll talk about the park in a moment,” she said. “We’re talking about Governess Clarinda right now. Did you *push* when you told her?”

Ben's heels drummed rhythmically against the counter base as he considered the question for some time.  Generally speaking she could usually tell somehow when he lied, but there was always the chance she might believe him this time.  Or maybe it was a test, and if he told the truth then it wouldn't be a problem.  

"Yes?"  He tried hopefully. 

Leia nodded. “Okay...” How to explain ethics to a five year old? It couldn’t be that different from trying to explain them to Han; she just had to yell less.  
  
“I understand why you did that,” she said. “It got her to do what you wanted. But Ben, Clarinda doesn’t have the Force like you do. When you push with your mind, that’s like being an X-wing and shooting at a speeder. It has no way to shield or defend itself. Do you think that’s very fair?”

Ben frowned.  "It's not like that at all.  Speeders don't have ice cream.  And if they did, and they weren't sharing, then that would make them bad.  You and papa fought the bad people, and shot at their speeders."  He cocked his head, looking up at her guiltily.  "And I  _needed_  the ice cream."

She might actually be too tired for this argument. Senator Organa, able to lead an entire rebellion to victory over the Galactic Empire, but helpless against the logic of a five-year-old.  
  
“Why did you need the ice cream, baby?” she asked tiredly.

Well..."  There was a right answer here, Ben knew it.  He just had to figure out what it was.  As he chewed on his lower lip and thought hard, a noise at the door caused him to look up as his father walked in, coming to a slow halt.

"There are my two favorite people."  Han said with a grin.

Ben brightened, pointing straight at him.  "Well,  _papa_  said that sugar is like fuel, and at the time I was being a spaceship and I needed fuel, so I  _needed_  the ice cream."

Han backpedaled quickly, hands going up defensively.

"Oh no-no-no-no, whatever I did, I didn't do it!  I'm not involved."

Leia’s lips were curling up. “Oh, so did the spaceship have dinner before ice-cream?” she asked, silently holding out a hand to Han and crooking a commanding finger. “Or has it been all sugar since the moment we left?”  
  
She glanced up at Han as he approached. “Mind tricked the governess again,” she said. “I have no idea how to explain this to him. His logic is infallible.”

Of course it is."  Han said with a grin, scooping Ben off of the counter and ruffling his hair.  "He is  _my_  son, after all."

Ben beamed, winding his arms around Han's neck and looking at his mother with indignation.  "I ate."  He said firmly.  "Dinner is fuel too.  And I'm gonna be the fastest, strongest starship in the galaxy."

Leia leaned into Han’s side and slid an arm around his waist. With her opposite hand, she brushed the now-ruffled curls back from Ben’s sticky cheeks. “I know you will,” she said. “But there’s something every starship needs besides fuel.” She gave him an evil grin. “Maintenance.” She looked at Han. “Mechanic? To the docking bay. Let’s hose him down.”

"No!"  Ben shrieked, winding his arms tighter around Han's neck.  "I don't need maintenance, I'm NEW!"

Han choked on a sputtering laugh, meeting Leia's eyes helplessly.  "Don't look at me.  I have the worst discipline in the known galaxy.  And as far as morals go...  why don't we just hire your brother and that ridiculous new beard of his to deal with it?  He could be governess Skywalker, he already wears a dress everywhere." 

Leia grinned. “I think that’s a good idea.” She reached in and tickled Ben’s stomach. “We want to keep our new little starship squeaky clean,” she said. Out of Ben’s sight, she reached around and pinched Han’s backside. “Onward, General Solo.”

Ben peeked hopefully at her around Han's shoulder, dark hair flopping into his eyes.  "And then we can have cookies and watch a holo?"  He asked sweetly, not above guilting his parents into it.  "I never get to eat cookies with you..."

Leia’s heart gave a pained twitch. “You are a little scoundrel,” she said. “But yes. Go in for your maintenance and don’t give the crew any trouble, and your reward is cookies and a holo.”

Ben tucked his head against Han’s shoulder with a satisfied nod.  Parents were easy, simple creatures.  A little sadness, a little guilt, and you could wrap your fingers into theirs and make sure they never let you go.  And you could always get them to cave when it came to cookies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear it is impossible to win an argument with a 5 year old, children are NOT illogical creatures, they are frighteningly, frighteningly logical... based on some kind of insane rules that we've all forgotten. xD
> 
> I've never won an argument with my niece. Not once.
> 
> Have you ever run into the infallible logic of children? Got a funny story? Please share!


	3. How to Pick Up Girls in Space

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Poe Dameron is a dork. Set immediately after the events on Craite.

“What is it?”

“Augh, it’s all over my blanket-“

“-get the hydrospanner-“

“Someone hit the lights!”

“Ow!”

“Ouch!”

There was a shudder through the body of the Millennium Falcon, and a general dimming of the working lights leading to the head and the cockpit. The constant thrum of generated power slipped off pitch, spinning into a higher whine that heralded an unplanned drop out of hyperspace.

The Falcon’s twenty-eight battered, exhausted passengers all jerked several inches forward. There was a wookie’s confused roar from the direction of the cockpit, and several strings of curses in several different languages from the men and women huddled around the crowded lounge.

Rey—who’d been in the pilot’s seat before all the confused hubbub started—staggered and grabbed ahold of a padded wall panel. Something must have broken. She only hoped they had what they needed to fix it.

The lights flooded, and Rey spotted Delora by the wall panels. She also spotted the very obvious source of the problem: a constant drop of viscous blue fluid from the panel above.

“Oh no,” she said. “No, no, no...”

She snatched a toolkit from one of the crash-webbing panels and picked her way around the scrunching, waking bodies of the resistance refugees, shoving the toolbox at Finn as she clambered up onto the backrest of the lounge’s booth sofa. She pressed her hands to the ceiling panel.

“We’ve got to get that leak stopped,” she said. “It’s dumping all our coolant, and I think that sound was it shorting out the Gavorean circuit. Hand me the pry-wrench and the Midri-head screwdriver.”

"What the hell is going on in here?"  Weaving nimbly around survivors who had taken to sleeping in the Falcon's tight passageway, Poe trotted into the lounge with BB-8 rolling quickly behind him.  The droid was bubbling out all sorts of suggestions, and Poe shook his head.

"That's never going to work, BB.  Besides, how would you get up there?"  He took in the sight before him, confused and blue coolant tinged sleepers scrambling away from the lounge as Finn glanced in his direction.

"Poe!"  The young man called out, distress in his voice. "What does a Midri look like?"

Poe arched an eyebrow, gaze traveling up the back of the sofa to the feet that balanced on it, the body that had disappeared into the ceiling from the chest up.  He hurried over, scooping the tool out of the chest.  "It's this one!"  He waved it briefly in front of Finn's nose before tucking it into the hand that was reaching down from the ceiling.  "What kind of Janitor were you, anyway!"

“I never had to use mechanics tools as a janitor!” Finn shouted from somewhere in the vicinity of Rey’s knees. “I used a mop!”  
  
Rey got the secondary access panel unscrewed, but before she could even snag the prybar from her belt, the panel was washed open on a deluge of coolant. It caught Rey on the side of the face, spilling down her shoulder and chest in a bright blue stream.  
  
She heard Finn curse below, and Leia’s wry voice saying, “You know, there might *be* a mop around here. This could be a good time to show us what you’re made of, Finn.”  
  
Rey reached up, pushing her hand through the access panel, and felt around for the busted line. There—the rubbery tube was split in one area and...that was a lot of coolant. The pressure in the tube was pushing it out at an incredible rate.  
  
“I need a number three—no—two seal tape,” she said, reaching down. Someone—Poe, if she had identified his voice correctly—put it in her hand. She lifted it, but the line was already pushing coolant around her fingers. The split was too long to hold together with one hand.   
  
Well, she’d have to try. Ripping a piece of seal tape off with her teeth, she tried to balance the roll on the inside of the ceiling. It fell off and bounced off her knee. “Phthit.” She grabbed the piece of tape from her mouth and made a valiant effort at wrapping it around the coolant line.  
  
Another gush of liquid spewed forth, and Rey gave an indignant squawk as it hit her in the ear. She needed about six hands to do this let, let alone get the fried circuit out. She’d have to climb deeper into the Falcon’s guts to reach that.  
  
“I need an extra pair of hands,” she said. “And that tape!”

Spitting out coolant that had rained down from around her shoulders, Poe caught the tape as it tumbled back down from the ceiling.  With a sigh, he clambered up onto the back of the couch to join her. 

The ceiling panel that she had worked open was narrow, and he had to tuck his body along hers to fit, wiggling to get his arms up into the tight space over his shoulders.  

"Hey there, gorgeous."  He said with a spluttering smirk, almost nose to nose with her.  He balanced the tape carefully on a crossbar where she could reach it.   "Now where am I supposed to put my hands again?"

Rey’s back was jammed against the panel’s edge, and she was so focused on the task of holding the cooling line that she made it halfway through an honest response before she caught the joke.  
  
“Where I’m holding the-“ Her words choked off. For the first time, she became aware of Poe Dameron in the tight space with her, his chest flush with hers, warm brown eyes and easy grin centimeters from hers. He was very warm. Very solid. His arms reaching up along hers were bare and very tan. There was a flirtatious sparkle in his gaze.  
  
“Oh, shut up, Poe,” she said, but a chuckle was bubbling out of her anyway. Someone below had already squealed out a laugh.

Grinning, Poe followed her instructions, winding his arms up through the Falcon's ancient guts and finding the line that she was holding.  He wrapped his hands around it, pinching closed the gash where the old material had ripped.

Spitting out another awkward mouthful of coolant, Poe realized exactly how ridiculous they looked.  His hair was now clinging wetly to his face, blue liquid and ship grease smearing across his forehead as he tried to wipe it on his shoulder.  Rey was no better off, both of them looking rather drowned.

"So..."  Poe started slowly, catching her eye and waggling an eyebrow at her as he targeted her with his best come-hither look.  "You come here often?"

Rey tried not to smile, but her mouth wouldn’t obey. The flirting was ridiculous, and designed to be funny, yet somehow Poe managed to be charming enough that she still felt vaguely flustered. She was grinning with laughter by the time she ripped off a piece of the sealant tape.

“You’re an idiot,” she laughed, reaching up along his rough hands, between them, and applying the tape with more success this time.

“I don’t suppose you can reach the Gavorean circuit either?” He wasn’t much taller than her.

"Nope, Unfortunately there  _are_ a few situations in which size matters."  He slid his hands back along the tubing, letting her follow with more strips of tape.

"Got a plan?"

There seemed to be a crowd gathering below, half of them chuckling at Poe’s constant stream of innuendos. Rey could feel the tension in his stomach and chest, the fact that he was holding his breath between jokes. She sent out just a trickle of the Force, curious about the pilot. She’d heard about him from BB-8, and a little from Finn, but he remained a largely unknown quantity.  
  
Except he’d known who she was. And that was something. Here, among the resistance, she had an identity. She wasn’t nobody.  
  
A gentle brush of her senses against his presence revealed all she needed to know: He was stressed. Wound tight as a suspension cable. She wasn’t used to anyone who processed stress through humor.  
  
Rey did have a plan, and considered three different ways to phrase it before deciding all of them would give Poe unnecessary ammunition. So instead, she just snagged the cross bar above their heads and pulled herself up. Her back scraped along the edge of the hatch, and Poe definitely got a face full of her—admittedly modest—chest. She managed to sling an elbow over the bar.  
  
“I can reach it now,” she grunted. “I just...need you to hand me things.”

"I think I heard you say to use my hands.  I'm great with my hands."  Poe wound his arms around her thighs, just below her hips, and held her up.  "There, now you have both yours free for anything you need."  He paused.  

"I have a few suggestions."

“I have a place you can stick those suggestions,” she grunted back. She was about to add that she didn’t need him holding her up, but it would help to have both hands. And he was steady, at least.  
  
“Only now how are you going to hand me things?” she said, stabilizing her back against the best of cables behind her. “Because I’m going to need a multitool in about five seconds.”

"Aren't you a Jedi?"  Poe said with a laugh, bracing himself on the edge of the panel opening.  "They can't be as heavy as rocks."

Rey tilted her head, considering. “You know, I hadn’t even thought of that.”  
  
She reached out, feeling along her senses for the toolbox. It was strange—neither sight nor touch, but something between the two. Something that made her feel the purpose of the object, as if it had an essence as tool itself. There was a harris wrench, a hydrospanner...she felt the multitool’s outline and smiled.  
  
It lifted through the hatch, dinging Poe on the elbow as it flew up past him. Rey caught it. “Yes!” she said. “I’ve never done that without looking before.”  
  
An instant later, she wished she could take the statement back.

"So you like doing it while looking."  Poe made a considering sound, deep in his throat.  "I get it, some people like to leave the lights on."

He blinked coolant out of his eyes, and wiped his nose on her shirt.

As his face pressed into her shirt, Rey let out something between a squeak and a yelp, her whole body jerking. She’d never had anyone’s face against her stomach before, but it *tickled*.  
  
“Don’t do that!” she said, fighting to keep the laugh from her voice.   
  
“What!?” Finn’s voice came from below. “Poe, what are you doing? Rey, what is he doing?”  
  
“Don’t make us send a porg up there to chaperone,” called Snap.

Poe laughed, wondering how ridiculous they looked from below, nothing but legs and kicking feet.  He lowered his voice, knowing it would drive Finn crazy not to know what was being said.  

He tilted his head back to look up at Rey with a coy smile.  "So what brings a pretty girl like you to a place like this?"

She was starting to expect it, and now that the initial fluster had died down, it was starting to be funny. They were both now covered in coolant, and as she wrenched open the circuit box, it released a drizzle of warm grease sliding down her arms. The drips soaked into her shirt under the armpits.  
  
She glanced down at Poe, who was still grinning up at her. “Apparently, I come up here to get filthy,” she said, matching his low tone.

"You dirty, dirty girl."  He agreed.  He nosed her stomach playfully.  "Tell me, with all this coolant leaking everywhere, is it getting hot in here?  Oh wait, that's just you."

"What the hell is going on up there!"  He felt hands tug at the hem of his pants, Finn trying to get a better look up into the ceiling.  

"Hey watch it!"  Poe scolded him loudly, almost losing his balance.  "Or I'll drop this pretty girl on your head!"

BB bubbled an amused trill up at him.  

“I never go down first,” Rey said through a Cheshire grin, working free the fried circuit.

Poe blinked up at her, amused by the flush that darkened her ears even as she grinned impishly at him.  Finn had talked about her non-stop, and Poe was starting to see why.  She was adorable.

"Do you even know what half the things you say really mean?"  He asked with a laugh.  "Or are you repeating things you've heard and hoping?"

She kicked him. “I know what they mean!” she said. “I know Jakku is practically nowhere, but some things are universal. Like holo vids in junk cantinas. And fourteen year old boys.”

Poe wobbled dangerously, and groped the back of her thigh in retribution.  "Watch it, Jedi!  Keep that up and I think I'm going to fall for you.  Hard.  On top of Finn."

Rey cackled, tucking the multitool into the front pocket of Poe’s jacket and reaching back up to bridge some wires. “You might fall anyway. It’s getting slippery in here.”

"I tend to have that effect on women."  Poe agreed easily, enjoying the unconscious flush creeping up her neck.  God, she was such an innocent, for all her big words.  It was charming.

Rey had nothing to say to that, so she kept working, hissing as the bridged wires sparked, their ends frazzled.   
  
“For fear of setting you off again,” she said. “I think I need a wire stripper. I’m not sure the floating truck is a good idea with a sharp object.”

"I think we're a little short on strippers."  Poe said, trying to brace himself well enough to hold her briefly with one arm and dig into the toolbox.  "But I can try to convince Finn, if you have enough credits."  He handed her up the tool, quickly grabbing her again and re-balancing.

"Or I'd be glad to strip for free, but my dancing is a little rusty."

Rey took the tool and snorted past a grin. “I’m sure it would still be entertaining. I’ll suggest it to Leia—ow!”  
  
The wire had sparked at her again, this time zapping a burn onto the tip of her finger. “Finn!” she shouted. Her voice echoed loudly inside the hatch. Taking pity at Poe’s wince, she shuffled the wire stripper into two fingers and covered the pilot’s ears. “Finn! Tell Chewie to power down the dorsal systems and aux power!”  
  
Uncovering Poe’s ears, she grimaced at the amount of coolant that was now turning gelatinous on his ears and hair. “This is going to be fun to wash out.”

"More fun with two."  He shot back.  "It's good to have help with all those... hard to reach places."  

It felt good to let go a little, to relax and tease her shamelessly.  He was snickering now, unable to keep a straight face as he kept up the constant stream of innuendo.

“Okay, I sort of handed you that one,” she admitted. Finn’s message must have reached Chewbacca, because the power cells around them hummed to a halt, dropping everything into darkness. “Tell me you have...” she sighed. “I really don’t want to say this. A torch. Do you have a torch? Don’t say you’re happy to see me. Please.”

I do..."  Poe resisted adding to that one, biding his time.  "It's on my belt.  Think you can Jedi it?"

He waited until her guard was down again, and she was reaching for the tool.  "Sorry if I'm making you uncomfortable, Ace.  I'm just really not feeling myself today." He managed to hold it in for a beat.  "Can I feel you?"

She looked down at him with raised eyebrows, and let the torch smack him in the jaw on the way up. Not hard, but enough to make a point.  
  
“Aren’t your arms getting tired,” she said. “And your mouth.”

"Honestly, yes.  My arms are killing me."  He grimaced, shifting his grip slightly.  "But I'm exceptionally good with my mouth. No one has managed to wear it out yet.  Want to try?"

“You could bring it up here and bridge these circuits for me,” she said, clicking on the torch. “That might get her engines going.”  
  
She stuck the torch between two circuit boxes and peered at the bare wires before her. “Okay, I’m almost done.”

"Oh thank the stars."  Poe breathed tiredly.  "I desperately need some air. Because you're taking my breath away."

He groaned, feeling his shoulders stiffening up with the stress of bearing her weight for so long.  The sofa back wasn't exactly the most stable point to balance.

Rey bridged the wires as quickly as she could, smacked the cover back into place, and tapped on Poe’s arm. “Okay, it’s done. You can let me go.”

Poe loosened his grip on her, letting her slowly slid down his body until her toes nearly touched safety again.  He halted her slide there, her nose inches from his as he winked at her.  

"Now don't go forgetting about me, darling.  Remember, we'll always have our moments in the ceiling."

Her hands had come to rest on his shoulders, and her bare feet were currently tip-toed on top of his boots. They were both covered in coolant and grease, sticky and drenched, sweating from the confines of the tight space.  
  
He still managed to look handsome. There was nothing he could do that would make that particular arrangement of features unattractive. But all that gooey gel on the side of his face almost did it. She grinned, heart kicking into a nervous trot as his arms stabilized around her waist.  
  
“How can I forget?” she said. “I think that’s the longest anyone has ever had his hand on my ass.”

"Well as long as you remember me for something."  He said with a last laugh.  Letting her go he wiggled out of the ceiling and came face to face with a seething Finn.

"What the hell were you doing to her up there?"  Finn growled at him, looking overprotective.

"Clearly, I was hitting on her."  He clapped Finn on the shoulder.  "Keep up, Buddy."  Holding out a hand to help Rey down he grabbed her wrist and threw her off balance, shoving her into Finn's arm.  "Better check her over and make sure her innocence is intact!"  Using it as a distraction, he took off for the refresher.

Rey squawked, catching herself on Finn’s shoulders. “No-NO! Poe!”  
  
She scrambled after him. “Don’t you *dare* take that refresher you—“ she hit the door just as it closed, laughing so hard her stomach ached. “You *ass*! I’m going to shove a porg in your bunk!”  
  
Seeming to sense the work was done, Chewie powered up the ship, and the engines groaned back to life, carrying its load of tired refugees through the stars.


	4. Spoon the Great and Powerful

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To those who have read Art of Broken Pieces, this chapter needs no explanation.
> 
> To those who have not.... I am sorry.

The small porg had always known that he was destined for great things.  His journey had been long, hard, and filled with dark days, but as he now stood high upon his perch and surveyed his kingdom, he was satisfied.  Finally, his time had come. 

**** 

He had been born into a time of great darkness and fear.  At night, in the safety of their hidden nests, the colony had traded whispered stories of the anger of the Porg Lord.  It was known that innocent porgs sometimes fell victim to the Porg Lord’s temper, and were thrown heedlessly from his seat in the Great Dark Sky despite their supplications.  And yet, while the other fledglings stared at the storytellers with eyes wide and dark from terror, the littlest porg listened with fascination and curiosity. 

For the smallest member of the clutch, food was scarce and nests were always taken.  As they continued to grow and he did not, the littlest porg found himself often on the sidelines, shoved away from the most delicious wiring, and tossed from whatever scraps of nest he found while other, bigger porgs settled in for sleep. 

He could still remember the long nights of his young life, when he had drifted aimlessly from nest to nest through the narrow tunnels of the colony’s metal home, trying to find a space of his own.  Those nights had blurred together until he had found one kind porg, huge and soft, and too lazy to bother with evicting one lonely little porg from under his wing. 

And so the littlest porg made his first—and only—friend. 

It was no wonder that he dreamed of the Porg Lord and the retribution his anger could wreck upon the porgs that had shunned him. 

The first time the Porg Lord spoke to him, the littlest porg knew in his very bones that he was, indeed, special.  He was chosen, and would one day rise above all other porgs.   

Though the porgs of the colony had never been able to discern a proper way to communicate with him, or with the Ship Mother, that day the littlest porg suddenly felt a voice, calling out to him.  There were no meowls or sqwags for him to interpret, and yet meaning and intention still vibrated through his feathers. 

The Porg Lord had returned from one of his expeditions, but the Ship Mother was not with him, and he needed THINGS. 

As the other porgs scattered to do his bidding, the littlest porg was afraid that his offering would not be enough.  He was too small to carry anything important, to fetch that which would be useful.  But he had a secret treasure, a long and shiny scooping-stick that he had once found under the resting place of the Ship Mother.  It was of little import, but it was the most precious thing the little porg had, and he hoped that it would be pleasing. 

Many of the porgish offerings were accepted, as the larger porgs had climbed into the Great Dark Sky to bring down the Porg Lord’s belongings.  But the offering of the littlest porg was returned to him, and for a great time he pondered over what that could mean. 

Immediately following was the Season of the Storm, when the sheltering wire and cables of their home shuddered with the force of some dark and terrible power without.  The metal walls groaned and strained, and the porgs of the colony huddled together for comfort.  Their angry god had abandoned them.  Time was a concept more felt than understood, but they understood that it had been many turns of the sky and many naysayers claimed that he would never return to them. 

But the littlest porg had faith, and when the great doors to the Outside opened with a rush of screaming wind and grains of strange rain swirling around him, the Porg Lord returned.  He did not stay for long, but when the Porg Lord stopped to rest in the Great Hall, the small porg gathered up his courage, approached slowly, and tried to ask why his gift had not been accepted.   

Though he received no answer, he also was not tossed about, as the elders had claimed would happen to presumptuous porgish fledglings, and as he returned to the nest he shared with his one soft and sleepy friend, he stared at his scooping-stick and came to his first great realization.   

It had not been a rejection of his gift!  It had been an honor, granted to him.  The Porg Lord had seen what a great and valuable treasure this was, and had not been willing to take away the one thing that mattered so much.  It had been returned to him, with a great blessing.   

 It mattered not to him that the other porgs of the colony could not see how important he would become, nor understood his nature as the chosen avatar of the Porg Lord.  He knew it in his heart to be true, and it was proven to him the day that the Porg Lord finally gifted the littlest porg with a nest all of his own.  For the small porg who had never found an easy home, never been the first to eat, the gift was the greatest treasure in the world.  From the hands of the Porg Lord himself the littlest porg received the soft green nest, with the same not-speak push that he had heard the first time he was called.  This nest was  _his_ , to use as he desired. 

And so, as time passed and the littlest porg considered what his future would hold, he became more and more convinced of the importance of the role that he was meant to play. 

And so it came to the time of Great Abandonment.   

The metal world of the colony was deserted, both the Ship Mother and the Porg Lord leaving the porgs alone and confused.  Resources became slim, and even the littlest porg’s fat friend began to become less soft, and less enjoyable to sleep upon.   

Venturing from his nest one day, the little porg followed his nose to a small tunnel through the wiring of the world’s walls, a tunnel too small for normal porgs to enter.  Within, he discovered a great wealth of undiscovered corrosion, old wires coated in the most delicious goop!  Delighted, he went running back to his nest to tell his friend of the wonder that he had found.  They would not starve! 

But as he told his story, he heard the rustling of feathers, and the scampering of feet, and he knew that someone had overheard his tale.  They would find a way into the secret cache that he had found, and they would take it all for themselves. 

The littlest porg, who had always been the last to eat, the last to sleep, and the last to grow, was suddenly overcome with rage!   _He_ was the chosen one!  _He_  was the porg to whom the Porg Lord had extended special favor.  And  _HE_  was the only porg with a special and perfectly sized scooping-stick!  With a flash of inspiration, the littlest porg  _finally_  understood what the Porg Lord had been trying to tell him all along, as he flapped about with his own shiny stick in the great hall.  He had been trying to show the littlest porg how to deal with his problems! 

Taking up his scooping-stick in his mouth, the small porg raced down the tunnels and trails of his home, taking all the shortcuts that he had learned over his lifetime, determined to head off the thieves.  With a screech of talons on the metal floor he skidded to a stop before the entrance to the little tunnel, taking up a defensive position. 

As they came around the corner, the littlest porg felt a moment of indecision.  They were bigger, they were stronger… but he fluffed his feathers and he lifted his scooping-stick, knowing that the blessings of the Porg Lord would protect him. 

As they neared the littlest porg gave a mighty war cry from around his grip on his shiny weapon, and still screaming muffled porgish obscenities he charged, thwacking mightily with the flat of his scooping stick.  He felt it bounce firmly off of fluff and blubber and for a moment every porg froze. 

The littlest porg could not believe what he had done!  He had stood up for himself, for his friend, for his nest, and for his food.  The dark eyes of the other porgs widened in slow shock, and with a screech of fear and a fluster of feathers they bolted in the opposite direction. 

Drunk on power and righteous anger, the littlest porg tore after them, meowling his newfound war cries at the top of his lungs—as best he could around the hilt of his weapon, of course. 

And so it was, that the littlest porg became the god-king of the metal colony, and his reign of terror began.   

*** 

Now he watched as the colony porgs slunk about beneath his high perch atop his fat friend’s sleeping belly, offering them bits of food that they had found.  Since the little porg had taken on the mantle of Porg Ruler, more and more colony porgs had abandoned their home every day, taking their chances in the great soft world outside.  The littlest porg let them go, content to allow the non-believers to leave the great colony.  For one day, he knew the Ship Mother and the Porg Lord would return, and he would share in their glory. 

 


	5. Enough is Enough

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which we have a little fun going back to the distant past. ^.^  
> Set in the year following the destruction of the second Death Star.

Han's boots had barely hit the concrete of the hangar floor before he was striding quickly towards the bay of small shuttles that provided transport between the interstellar port and the new governmental complex springing up amid the planet's green forest.  An aide was scurrying up to meet him already waving to get his attention.

"General Solo!  General Solo!"  

Han pretended not to hear, ignoring the small man's flailing hands. As the scampering feet caught up to him the man trotted around in front of him, panting as Han came to a frustrated halt.

"What do you want?"  He snapped, irritated.  He had one goal while he was planetside, one mission that was more important than any other.  It had been over a month since he and Leia had even been in the same damn room, much less with the time to exchange words, or discuss what they were--or were not.  It was hard to be anything at all from opposite ends of the galaxy.

"I have... a message for you sir.  From High Command.  There's an urgent situation building in the Stratavere System, and-"

With a growl, Han sidestepped him, cutting him off as he strode away.  After a moment of shocked silence, he heard the pattering of the man's shoes catching back up to him.

"General Solo!  You have orders to--"

"Fuck my orders!"  Han turned on him, the man almost rebounding off of his chest.  "You can take those orders and stuff them.  I'm pretty damn sure I count as High Command myself, and I am officially giving those orders to someone else!"

Leaving the man gaping in his wake, Han stormed to the nearest shuttle and closed the doors, setting a course for the senatorial wing.  As the shuttle's autopilot took over, he pulled up the records of Leia's official schedule, glancing over it with a frown.  Meeting after meeting, lunch with this ambassador and dinner with that one.  He scrubbed a hand through his hair, considering his options.  Short of assassinating someone to free up a time slot, it was going to come down to old fashioned sabotage.  Like locking her in her rooms until she gave up.  He decided plan B came with less risk of a court marshal.

The rip in the hem of her dress had been a bad end to a worse morning, one the Aurelian ambassadors would certainly notice. She hadn’t intended to stop back by her quarters at all, but with the ripped hem came an opportunity to slip away under the guise of stately duty. Of course she needed to change. To appear less than immaculately-clothed and coiffed before the Chamberlain was to put a heavy strike against the New Republic’s image in the eyes of the opulent system’s ambassador, and if they were going to get access to the planet’s vast credit account to aid in reconstruction, they would absolutely require someone who could present the republic in the best possible light.  
  
A princess and war-hero, according to the senate, was just the woman for the task. It helped, Commander Antilles had pointed out, that Leia was beautiful enough on her own to rival any of Aurelia’s glitter-gowned beauties. It had come with a genuine smile, and sidelong smirk from Luke.  
  
Luke. Her brother. Her twin. She was still getting used to that. She was still getting used to the idea that Darth Vader had been her father. That he had turned to the light long enough to turn the course of the fight.  
  
“He’s trying awfully hard,” Leia said, when Luke caught up to her in the hallway.  
  
“I tried to tell him,” Luke said. “I swear I did. He’s just...” Luke shrugged. “Well.”  
  
“There are other women in the Rebellion,” she said. “There are even more in the New Republic.”  
  
Luke only smiled, nodded sideways in agreement. “There’s only one you.”  
  
She’d laughed. “Right now I wish there were five of me. You know, I have only about forty minutes to get to my quarters and find another damn dress that’s good enough for an Aurelian lunch. Luncheon. No, it can’t just be lunch with the Aurelians.”  
  
“What’s wrong with this one?” Luke said, furrowing his brow.  
  
“Hem. Love affair with wrought silver scrollwork on a staircase. It tore.”  
  
“You can’t tell.”  
  
“I can tell. An Aurelian could tell. They’d smell it through the door. Besides, I would really like five minutes without someone-“  
  
“Princess Leia! Princess-“ C-3PO tottered toward them, golden arm raised in greeting. “Very sorry, Princess—I mean senator. I do apologize. I was given a message for you from-“  
  
“Save it,” Leia said, even as Luke put his hand on her back and ushered her forward. “Go,” he whispered. “I’ll hold them off.”  
  
“I love you,” she breathed.  
  
He chuckled. “I know.”  
  
She made it back to her quarters without further incident, and if pressed, would have admitted to some mild skulking to see that it happened. Upon closing the door to her quarters, she let out a massive sigh and leaned against the door.

Hearing voices down the corridor as he approached her suite, Han hung back, not wanting to have to deal with one more interruption.  Over the course of finding her rooms in this blasted maze he had fended off at least three people who had recognized him and had more to say than he was interested in hearing.  At least one of them would probably never speak to him again. 

As the voices drifted away, Han hurried up the corridor to her door, finding himself suddenly hesitating as he lifted a hand.  It  _had_  been over a month, and he'd heard almost nothing from her.  And months before that since they had been able to steal more than a few moments to lock eyes, to smile at one another... to brush their hands together under a table.  As much as he hated the idea, what if things were changing?  It was easy to get caught up by romance in war, the thrill of running together, fighting side by side, relying on each other for comfort and safety.  But now she was surrounded by hundreds, thousands, and busier than ever before.  Was there still room for him?

Han glared at the door, shoving the thoughts aside.  He was damn well going to  _make_  room.  If this princess thought she was ever going to see the last of him, she had better re-consider her options.

He knocked sharply.

Leia almost ignored the knock. She was only halfway through buttoning the back of her dress, and her hair was going to need a bit of droid-assisted taming thanks to a snag on a hook closure at the neck of her gown. There wasn’t time for an interruption right now, not unless it was a cadre of stylists ready to work some sort of magic in the next fifteen minutes. She was already going to be late for the Aurelian ambassador’s luncheon, and if she showed up looking less than entirely worth it...  
  
The gown had been her mother’s, and though it had been tailored to fit Leia’s shorter stature, each successive button revealed that the neckline displayed a far greater amount of cleavage than it did in her mother’s holos. Well, there was no time to change now. Hopefully the Chamberlain would be impressed.  
  
Something about the knock. Something about the way the air in her room changed when it happened, the sense of something...important sent her toward the door, almost unconsciously. She felt her shoulders tightening in preparation for something terrible, her breath deepening to find the stillness she needed to take it in and deal with it.  
  
She opened the door, and every single thought left her brain. He was there. All scowl and big shoulders and scoundrel’s hands, his light brown curls looking harassed. “Han!”  
  
She didn’t even know she was pitching herself into his chest until she was there, and her hands were under his jacket, twisting into the back of his shirt to keep him anchored to her in case he vanished again.

He wasn't entirely sure what he had expected, she might not have even been there.  In which case he had been fully prepared to kick the door down and wait until she came back. But an armful of princess was a pleasant surprise.

He wound his arms around her, lifting her toes off the ground and walking into the room with her.  He kicked the door closed behind them and hunched around her, burying his face in her beautifully coiffed hair.  He breathed her in, almost surprised that she no longer smelled of pine and earth and dusty spaceships.  Setting her back down again, he rested his hands on her shoulders, pushing her out to arms length and looking her over.  She looked good, if tired around the eyes.  Better than good, actually.  The dress she was tying herself into did incredible things to her cleavage, things he didn't want other people gawking at in public.

"It's good to see you."

Leia couldn’t help grinning up at him, or the warm flush that rose on her skin as he looked over her. “When did you get in?” She demanded. “Why didn’t I know you were docking? When—you’re staying? A few days at least?” She knew she sounded a little bit desperate, but he had been the one person she wanted to see the most over these past few weeks, and the one person who was never there. She’d gotten used to his odd combination of serious and sarcastic, the way his smuggler’s drawl dropped away—but never completely—when he wasn’t trying to impress anyone. She’d missed knowing he would be there, when she looked over, ready with a wink and that slow, crooked smile that told her everything would be just fine.  
  
Luke had been wonderful, but...there was something about Han Solo that reminded her to breathe.  
  
Or, made her forget to, when he looked at her like that.

"Woah now!"  He grinned at her storm of questions.  "One at a time, sweetheart.  I just got in, and you didn't know because I ignored about thirty new orders to get here.  At least a few of them may have been from you..."  

Her shoulders seemed smaller under his hands than he remembered, and all he wanted to do was sweep her back into his arms and carry her away.  He wanted to pull all the pins from that beautiful hair and run his hands through it, mess it up.  There were a lot of things he wanted... things that they had never quite approached directly for all the history and heat between them.  There had never been the right moment for anything, anything but stolen kisses on their way to and from requirements. 

He glanced over his shoulder at the closed door behind them, then looked back at her thoughtfully.  "You weren't heading somewhere now, were you?"  The question was rhetorical, he had her schedule memorized.  "Because you're not anymore, we need to talk."

Her breath stopped in her chest, every heartbeat saying, no, no, I’m not going anywhere. But a heavy sense of duty dragged at the back of her neck, swinging her spirits down with it. “I...have a lunch with the Aurelian Chamberlain about reconstruction aid,” she said, shaking her head and hating herself for it. “We can’t afford the kind of infrastructure changes the New Republic will need without-“

Leaning in, Han kissed her, cutting off her words to shut her up.  He wound his arms around her waist, once again lifting her off the floor, and carried her across the room. Finding the edge of a couch with his shins, he finally broke the kiss, sitting down and tucking her into his lap.  

"They'll deal without you."  He said firmly, sliding his hands to her waist and holding her there.  Escape was not going to be an option.  "Like I said, we need to talk."

She wanted to fight him. There was so much work to do. She had an obligation—the galaxy...wasn’t in mortal peril anymore.  
  
She paused, staring at his shoulder as she forced herself to breathe that fact in. They had won. They’d won. The Empire was broken apart, and they had been working for months in a situation of relative peace. Difficult peace, heavy with politics and uncertainty, but peace all the same.  
  
And after all, what the hell had she been fighting for, if not the ability for everyone in the galaxy to have peace, and happiness. For the first time, she wondered if she should consider including herself in that promise.  
  
Han was here, and he was warm and he was strong and though she hated to admit it, she loved the way he could literally sweep her off her feet. And she didn’t want to go to that lunch and suffer through Aurelian overtures and machinations. She wanted to stay, right here, sitting across Han’s warm thighs, and...talk. Especially if ‘talk’ meant what she thought it did.  
  
She sighed at him, trying to look frustrated, but unable to restrain a smile.

No arguing, Princess."  Han ordered.  "I have questions for you."  He slid his arms further around her waist, hands running up her back and into her hair.  Piece by piece he began to dismantle the complicated structure of it. 

He wasn't about to show her how concerned he had been about whatever had grown between them.  The nights he had spent restlessly pacing the Falcon's halls, wondering if there was still space for them in their new lives.  

"Marry me."

Leia could have reasonably expected almost any other question. The way he was casually destroying an hour of careful pinning and braiding had seen her trying to wriggle back, part of her still convinced that she was going to go to that lunch.  
  
Then he went and said that, and every plan she’d ever made floated away. Everything inside her was melting, every single resistant cell going warm and silly. She was trembling again. He always made her do that. Ever since that first kiss on the Falcon. He was right there, right here, holding her like she’d wished he could for so many months, and even though she believed him when he said he loved her, she’d never quite been able to convince herself that a man like Han Solo could ever...  
  
“Yes,” she breathed, before her brain could catch up. Her instincts knew the answer. There would be no lunch. There would be nothing for the rest of the day except Han Solo.

"Really?"  He arched an eyebrow at her, like he honestly hadn't expected it to be that easy.  Then a slow wide grin broke out over his face, crinkling up his eyes.  Only partway through the complex underpinnings of her hairdo, his hands flattened along her scalp, tugging her towards him and kissing her hard.  He lingered over the taste of her lips, exactly how he remembered. 

She almost laughed into his mouth, but it came out a slightly different kind of sound, one she wasn’t certain was entirely correct for a princess or a senator. But Han’s mouth was on hers, and she had forgotten how good it felt to have his big hands in her hair, and his smell surrounding her, and his tongue doing...that. All of that. Rude. Cocky. Somehow sweet and heroic underneath it all. He was the worst man and the best all in one, and she loved him. And she was going to marry him.

She struggled to extract her comm from its spot on her wrist, flicking it to off. She’d inform Mon Mothma that she couldn’t go in a few minutes. Surely, the woman would understand, especially once someone noticed the Millennium Falcon in a nearby dock. That would put a clearly defined shape to the situation.

She buried her hands against his chest, leaning into the kiss, electricity and hope coursing through her.

Pins and clips and strange decorative baubles rained down onto the floor behind her, and with some satisfaction Han felt her hair begin to give up, falling piece by piece down around her shoulders and hips.  He wound up a handful of it, finally pulling her out of the kiss and meeting her eyes, then letting his gaze strafe down playfully.

"I do like what that dress does for you."  He commented, glancing back up at her with a sideways grin.  "You know, Princess, you're blushing."

“I’m not blushing,” she said. Not that she would admit. “And it was my mother’s dress.” The silent command not to go tearing it off of her in a fit lingered between them.  
  
And that was another thing. Leia felt a tingle of adrenaline slip into her arteries, her breathing catch just a bit at the realization that she was imagining more than just an evening of catching up. She wanted to kiss him unconscious, but she wanted more than that, and the thought was somewhat terrifying. She’d been fifteen when the Rebellion started. Seventeen when she met Han, and convinced that the kind of man she wanted in her life was kind. Was proper. Was a gentleman.   
  
...none of those things applied to Han. Well, possibly the kind part, when he wasn’t trying too hard to be a pirate, but he wasn’t proper and he wasn’t a gentleman. Except when he was. Which was not at all predictable. Confusing. That was what Han was. Confusing and good. And terrible, with his hands in her hair like that.  
  
“I should...” she had to fight to assemble a sentence “...inform someone. To clear my afternoon.”

He arched an eyebrow at her, digging his fingers into her scalp and massaging where he was certain that style had been pulling at her head all day.  "Your afternoon, hmm?  And your evening, at least.  Maybe even your night."  He grinned wolfishly.  "And don't worry, mine has been cleared by dint of either ignoring all my calls or forwarding them to Chewie.  If you were worried..."  

Finally letting go of her hair, Han wrapped one arm around her waist to pin her in place, and reached down to scoop up her com with his other hand.  "Here you go, call who you need.  But you're not moving.  And if they try to come and get you, I'll shoot them.  You can tell them that."

A combination of elation and anxiety sent a laugh bubbling out of her. It had been months since she’d felt his arms around her, longer since the last time they’d sat like this. Probably not since Endor, and the blissful minutes they’d managed to find in front of a fire, pilots and pathfinders and fuzzy creatures all celebrating around them as she let herself shuck the dignity of a princess and sat curled against Han’s chest, laughing at the giddy feeling that the war was over.  
  
And now he was holding her to him, and there was no one around to tease them or interrupt them. She had him all to herself for the afternoon. And the evening. And maybe the night. A thrill of anxious excitement sent a shiver through her. She was definitely blushing now. His arm brooked no argument, and her rapidly increasing pulse seemed to agree that she was kidding herself if she thought she’d get any more work done today.  
  
She clicked on her comm and debated who to call. Mon Mothma was Chief of State—she would have far too much going on. An aide would be better. Someone she could just *tell* to clear her schedule. She was a princess and senator. Did she really need an excuse right now? An excuse would be polite.  
  
She smiled, cocked an eyebrow back at Han. He’d asked for this. He really had.  
  
She clicked over to C-3PO’s channel. “Threepio, clear my schedule for the rest of today,” she said. “If anyone asks, tell them I’m celebrating my engagement.”  
  
She clicked off the comm just as the electronic voice began to splutter protests of confusion. She smirked down at Han. “Hope you weren’t planning on that being a secret for long.”

Not really."  He agreed with a laugh.  "But I'm starting to think maybe I didn't really think this through.  I figured if I were your husband, I'd have to stick around for a bit.  After all, can't have you wondering around unaccompanied, think of the impropriety!  But I just realized that means I probably have to come to some of your dull events...  is it too late to change my mind?"

He snuggled her closer into his lap and without warning, tilted backwards and sideways onto the couch, spilling her down atop him.  Her hair rained down around his face and chest, her nose landing inches from his.  "Hello there, Gorgeous."  He purred teasingly.

“Well,” she said, chuckling, fighting for a bit of control as she stretched out along him. He smelled like the Falcon. He felt like... “I didn’t actually say it was to you, so there’s still time to run.” She stretched her hands up to his hair, teasing her fingers through it, down his jaw, across the little scar on his chin. A grin spread across her face as the perfect little jibe flashed into her mind. “Wedge Antilles has made a travesty of concealing interest, and he’s at most of these dull events. I’m sure he’d be willing to step in if you’re too afraid of diplomats and stiff collars.”

"If I thought he stood even the tiniest chance, I might almost be jealous."  Han teased back.  "But seeing as how I didn't actually come here to kill anyone, I'll let it slide."  

Han closed his eyes, turning his face into the soft touch of her hand.  God, he had missed her so much.  These little moments, her shy fingers, the flush of her cheeks as his flirting words both embarrassed her and made her determined to match him.  She was soft and warm above him, and it was becoming hard to imagine how he had ever worried that distance could change their feelings for one another.  With her small body trapped in his arms, he knew he could never feel like this about anyone again.  The damn woman had ruined him.

He placed a soft kiss in the palm of her hand, looking back up at her and memorizing how she looked just now, tangled hair falling around them, eyes dark and sparkling, smiling just for him.

Leia sighed, feeling muscles in her back and neck relaxing for the first time in what felt like forever. The galaxy was safe. She was safe, and the man she wanted to be with more than anyone in the universe was stretched out beneath her, warm and grinning and, for once, not trying to make her angry, just to get a reaction. He was looking at her, eyes full of some kind of melting sweetness that was almost hard to look at. But it was hers. He was hers. That meant everything.  
  
A quick, pounding knock on the door startled her out of the moment. She met his eyes, letting her own irritation at the interruption seep into her gaze. “You want to answer that?” she asked.

"I'd be glad to."  He said darkly, sitting up and dumping her onto the couch.  Striding to the door he yanked it open and glared at whomever had disturbed them.  "What do you want?"

The aide took a step back, clearly not expecting her knock to be met with such vehement disapproval. “I...was sent by the Chief of State to...confirm that Senator Organa was...quite serious...”

Calmly, Han reached down to his hip and popped free the strap that locked his blaster into it's holster.  Pulling it out, he clicked it obviously over onto the stun setting and then leaned against the doorframe with the blaster hanging lazily in his hand.  "She's quite serious."  He said flatly.  "Unless you actually have anything important to add...?"

“She did want to know who the...gentleman was,” the aide seemed uncertain such a word could be applied to the threatening smuggler leaning in the doorframe.  
  
Leia had arranged herself on the sofa, and a wave of pity for the poor girl washed over her. “Tell Chief of State Mon Mothma that I’ve recently accepted General Solo’s request.”  
  
The aide’s brows furrowed, and she seemed to regard Han with some level of doubt. “General...Solo, then? Very good, ma’am, I’ll inform her. And congratulations.” She gave Han another look. “I think.”

"Accepted."  He replied coolly.  "And the senator doesn't want to be disturbed again."  As the confused aide darted another glance past him towards Leia before the door was closed in her face. 

With a sigh, Han dropped his blaster into a chair near the door and pulled free the buckles of his holster belt which followed suit.  "Well that rumor should spread."  He said with a satisfied smirk.  "Either they'll leave you alone for a while now, or I'll have to make a real example of the next person who knocks on that door."

“Please don’t stun an aide,” Leia said, trying to hide a laugh. Han could be delightfully forthright and impatient. Sometimes it was nice to have a pet non-diplomat to sic on people. Still, the sight of him removing his holsters was...affecting. She wondered just how undiplomatic he planned to be. If agreeing to marry him meant he suddenly was going to expect...  
  
She looked away, down at the scattered pins and baubles on the floor. Was she nervous? Why was she nervous? She loved him. She was going to marry him. It was completely normal for something like this to happen. It wasn’t as if she were some blushing young girl with no experience...  
  
No, Leia, she thought. You’re a blushing older girl with *close* to no experience. Except for a single night when she was sixteen at an Embassy function, stolen alone in a side parlor, with the visiting ambassador’s page who’d clearly thought her more experienced than she was... well, he’d been a bit surprised. But enthusiastic. She’d been underwhelmed, but still pleased with her conquest of that particular milestone.  
  
This was different. This felt different. This meant something, and she couldn’t help the sudden worry that Han would expect her to be immediately ready to pounce.

Settling back onto the couch beside her, Han pulled her back into his lap, her legs draped sideways over his.  One arm cradled her against his chest, the other hand taking hers and lacing their fingers together.  "So... now that we have the day, tell me everything I've missed.  Well, not everything, everything interesting."  He paused again.  "Maybe just tell me who we hate, and who we make fun of."

She let out a controlled breath, wishing she could laugh at herself just a little bit. When had Han ever assumed he was going to get anything out of her without having to work for it? She hadn’t exactly made it easy on him. She did laugh a little, partly at herself, and partly because he had reduced the entirety of her political situation into a neat set of categories.  
  
A neat set of categories that wasn’t entirely wrong. “We hate the Aurelians and the Hapans, but we need their money. We make fun of everyone who wouldn’t join us before and is now clamoring to be the home of the new capitol. Also, Luke, because he’s growing a beard and it looks ridiculous.”

"A beard?"  Han laughed.  "Oh we are definitely making fun of that!  What was he thinking?"  He grinned.  "He's trying to look manly and wise, isn't he."

His thumb played along the base of her wrist, feeling the delicate bones that lay beneath the skin.  Sliding up into her palm he traced the lines of it, enjoying the feel of intimacy between them.  Suddenly they had time... not enough, but a little.  Time to learn and remember, time to simply be.  Time to finally explore everything about her that he had missed before. Time to learn who Han Solo and Leia Organa could be together.


	6. Heavy Lies the Crown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which we see a bit more of the dynamic between Poe and Leia, and the toll that leadership takes.

When the news came in, Poe was elbows deep in the undercarriage of the x-wing that he had been given, its pilot taking over a role in the quartermaster's employ.  There was lots of work that needed to be done on it, stabilizers out of alignment, fuel cells patched and worn, but Poe hadn't felt as content in weeks. It was a wonderful feeling to lose himself in the simple mindless work of tinkering with the ship, shirts stained with grease and hands rough and scraped up from wires and tools.  It was simple, pure, and a much needed break from the endless amount of thinking that Leia seemed to be asking from him of late.

BB8 trundled up to him with a mournful howl, getting his attention with a series of trilling beeps.

"Wait, slow down, buddy."  Poe backed himself out of the ship's guts, wiping his hands on his pants and looking down at his droid with a slow sinking in the pit of his stomach.  "He did  _what?_ The entire population?"  Cursing, Poe took off towards the common areas, knowing that Leia would have heard first.  She was strong, but each new communique about the First Order's slow encroachment across the galaxy took something from her that she could never replace.  It had been one thing when Ben had been a pawn, a seed of hope had kept her purposeful and determined.  But after Han... and now that Ben was the Supreme Leader, Poe watched it slowly tear her down.

His hands tightened into fists as he hurried, anger pooling in the pit of his stomach.  What kind of bastard did it take to be so willing to destroy all that cared for him with such wanton abandon?

He found her in one of the lounges, seated at one of the side tables with her hands resting lax in her lap.  She was staring out one of the windows, for all the world the picture of composure but Poe could see the deep lines of pain in her face.  Hurrying to her side he crouched down beside her, taking her hands into his as she slowly turned to face him with one of the sad smiles he both hated and loved so much.  

"I heard."  He said quietly, squeezing her fingers gently.  "We'll get them back, I swear we will."

Poe’s hands were rough, and sweet, and welcome as any friend’s could be. Leia tightened her fingers around them, not for the first time wishing...   
  
No. She had to stop that. Stop trying to replace what she had lost. But still, as she looked into the sympathetic, grave face of her most trusted commander, she couldn’t help but admit that she’d already done it. She’d already made him a surrogate son in her heart. Nothing would fill that gaping wound her Ben had left, nothing could erase the memory of him sweetly asleep at her breast or laughing in the full, delighted shriek of a toddler as Han swung him around by the legs. Even the boy who’d frowned at her at thirteen, and said he wasn’t a kid anymore, looking down, down, down at her...and yet, he’d still bent to let her kiss him. He’d looked so handsome in his apprentice’s robe, his grandfather’s lightsaber at his side, his uncle’s hand proudly on his shoulder.  
  
That boy was gone. She didn’t have those memories with Poe, though she’d seen him in holo-communications Shara had proudly shown her. Two years old, terrorizing a mouse droid. Still. She wasn’t his mother. He wasn’t her son. But skies, sometimes she wanted him to be.  
  
She extracted a hand from his and touched his cheek, sending up a silent thanks to Shara’s spirit for giving the galaxy a man like Poe. “Thank you,” she said.  
  
Ripples of shock and anger were coursing through the base. She could feel them arcing toward her, people gathering to ask if it was true, what they could do, how she could stand it. There were more than a few glossy eyes among those angry faces. Many people who’d had friends on Sullust, friends who now might be slaves to the First Order.  
  
Then everyone was there, crowding in, talking and consoling, throwing plans and ideas for retaliation or consolation. Her heart was a cavern. But caverns could provide shelter in the darkness.  
  
“...n’t you see it’s hard for her too?” One of the girls was saying. “It’s her son that’s done it all. Or whatever creature her son has become.”  
  
Nearby, Rey’s posture tightened, and she turned away, brow crumpling.

With the ghost of her hand still warm on his cheek, Poe gave her hands a last squeeze and stood, temper flaring.  "Enough!"  He said sharply, projecting out at them as he had when calling cadets to order across the fields of the academy.  "There's enough regret for all of us to fill the galaxy a hundred times over if we let ourselves, but that accomplishes nothing!  It's where we go from here that defines how we win this war."

He wanted to share in their anger, to hate the man that could have done this.  He did hate him, but he could not do that to her.  It was hate that had started Kylo Ren down the path he now walked.

"As we are now, we can't do anything yet to aid Sullust, but we  _can_  continue building the bridges we are making.  Since our broadcast, we've had multiple new contacts reaching out to us, I want the next five expeditionary teams geared up and ready to fly out by tonight.  Rani-"  He singled out the girl who had been speaking when he interrupted.  

"You'll start working with the communications team to solidify our communication channels, to set up secure lines that we can use to stay in touch with our new sources without being traced."

Sir,” she said, her head-tails twitching in relief that she hadn’t been singled out for reprimand. She met Vara’s eyes across the circle and widened her own. Vara nodded at her, understanding. No one liked being cut off right before a rousing speech—it tended to make people think you’d provoked it, whether or not that was true. Rani ducked out the door at a jog, and Vara returned her attention to Poe. His eyes burned, and there was a sort of aura around him that seemed to inflame his presence, widen it in everyone else’s eyes. Passion, purpose. Command. God, he was staggering.  
  
“Slaves are at least alive,” said Bovinian, a young Ithorian with a sweet temper. “It could be so much worse. It could be another Hosnian system.”  
  
Vara compressed her lips. It was true. It wasn’t comforting, but it was true.  
  
“Yeah,” Torden agreed, leaning his hip into the arm of the couch beside General Organa. “Don’t feel too responsible. It’s like Vara. Her dad’s research got something like four planets enslaved and strip-mined by the First Order.”  
  
Vara froze. For just a moment, she told herself she hadn’t heard it. But the words worked their way slowly through her system, climbing sluggishly through her veins until she could no longer deny what she’d just heard. Torden. Her wingmate. Her friend. He’d just told...everyone... And now everyone was turning, confusion across their faces as they assimilated this new information. A good dozen still didn’t know who she was, but those who did—they were looking at her with wide eyes.  
  
“What the hell,” she breathed.  
  
Torden’s eyes snapped to her, then widened, as if he’d just realized what he’d said. “I didn’t mean it in...” he trailed off.  
  
“...in a bad way?” she finished. It was like she wasn’t in her body. Everything was cold. She wasn’t even angry, not yet. But she could see it, far off, like an approaching wave. “No, of course not,” she said, monotone. “No one says ‘look who’s dad caused a quadri-planetary genocide’ in a bad way.”  
  
“Varr...”

Poe lifted a hand, cutting them both off.  "Again, Enough."  He met their eyes in turn, moving on to include others who were whispering in his pointed gaze.  "No one person can be responsible for anything on that scale.  It takes an army, it takes the First Order."  He paused, hand gently resting on Leia's shoulder.  "Or it takes the Resistance.  We do nothing on our own either, remember that.  What we accomplish, we accomplish together.  Now get back to your duties!"  

Poe's eyes followed Vara as she spun away, the rest of the crowd slowly thinning out as well.  There was tension in her shoulders, her spine set ramrod straight.  He had read her file, years ago, he knew what pain lay hidden in that determined pride.  Even as a girl she had used her defensiveness as a weapon, insulating herself from her family's mistakes.  Suddenly tired, Poe sighed and rubbed at the bridge of his nose, dropping down into a seat across from Leia even as he watched Vara walk away.  

"How do you do it?"  He asked quietly, wanting to reach out and follow the young pilot, to offer comfort to one of the few new faces he knew.  "How do you keep going?"  Leia's advice, her gentle words and crystal clear opinions always cleared his mind--even when they confused him further.

“You keep them going,” Leia said. Her brow furrowed, and she looked past Poe’s shoulder at the girl in the purple flightsuit, now warding off the hand-wringing apologies of the pilot who’d spoken. “And sometimes, it almost feels like enough.”


	7. The Fall of Karrakesh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which we look back to how the First Order fell, and why Ben is so convinced that Hux had died.

Fists clenched tightly at his sides, Ben struggled to control the anger that swept hotly through his veins.

“Why haven’t they been _stopped?_ ”  He snarled, watching the movement across the screens.  Points of light flashed across the base’s map, each one an indicator of a breach by the Resistance.  There should have been warning, they should have been easily repelled.

How the fuck had they come up with so many ships?  The last counts that he had received were half this number, and most of those scarred from skirmishes across the main front of the war.  The Resistance had stopped pushing as hard after their General’s flagship had fallen, new leadership seeming reserved and hesitant. 

Cursing, Ben swept a hand across the desk that housed the bank of security screens, sending scattered datapads and other clutter tumbling across the floor with a shattering crash.  The lieutenant seated at the deck jumped, spine tense with panic.

“I don’t know, sir!”  He managed, fingers flying over the monitor controls, the screes flickering from feed to feed, most filled with images of battle and billowing smoke.

The sound of booted feet racing towards him caused Ben to spin, cloak whipping about his heels as the aide that approached skidded to a breathless halt. 

“Supreme Leader!”  He gasped, face pale.  “The Rebel forces have taken the southern wing, we’ve lost all communications with the launch bays, and-“  Ben cut him off with an angry roar, hand snapping out as the Force crackled through him like a dark storm and the man was flung back against the far wall with the audible thud.  He slumped like a broken doll to the floor as Ben turned back to face the monitors and the technician who was now standing in a shaky salute.

The echoing vibrations of explosions and blaster fire could be heard in the distance, Starfighters strafing through the sky above the base constantly.

“Get out.”  Ben growled, temper rising, fury pooling in his stomach.  How had everything gone so wrong, so quickly?  This was the center of the First Order’s power, here of all places the insipid Rebel army should have been unable to touch them.  What had he missed?

Moving towards the wall of windows that looked out from the command hub over the vast sprawling complex that had been the First Order’s growing capitol, Ben watched the flames rising in the distance.  Karrakesh was burning, and no amount of theoretical impossibility was going to change that.

He heard Hux’s footfalls behind him, felt the oily taint of his presence approach.  He didn’t bother to turn, acknowledging the other man’s presence with little more than a growl.

“Do you have a plan?”  Hux asked smoothly, irreverence in his frustratingly polished voice.  “Some masterpiece of violence to unveil against the rabble?”

Ben clenched a fist, incredibly tempted to turn and smash it into that sneering face.  Resisting, he ignored the jibe.  “Our defenses were your responsibility, Hux.”  He snapped, watching the dogfight playing out in the air above, raining burning hunks of metal down onto the buiildings below as Starfighters tore each other apart.

“If you had done your damn job, the _one_ job I gave you—“

He heard the step, felt the Force cry out in danger, and the half turn he managed kept the short vibroblade from striking true.  Blazing pain seared his side above his hip, and with a roar of fury Ben had just enough time to see the hate and shock twisting Hux’s face before he lifted the man from his feet, hurling him against the thick transparisteel of the windows.  The short weapon clattered to the floor at his feet, blood spattering across the sleek metal flooring.

"This is all _your_ fault."  Hux hissed, heels scrabbling against the glass behind him as he struggled against Ben's power, fists clenching.

Rage spiraled white-hot through Ben's mind, the sharp edge of pain crystallizing in his mind.

“This was _not_ the day to fuck with me.”  Ben snarled, hands rising before him as he stalked towards where Hux squirmed uselessly.  With a twitch of his fingers Ben felt resistance give through the force as the cracking sound of snapping bone and Hux’s high-pitched scream reached his ears and one of the man’s legs went limp at an unnatural angle. 

“You’ve always been a dog, scrambling at Snoke’s feet, then at mine.”  Damp heat spread down the flank of Ben’s tunic, blood running over his hip under the heavy fabric.  “I never understood why he tolerated you for so long.”  Another satisfying crunch, the screaming intensifying as Ben lashed out with the force again, breaking the man’s other leg.

The hate was gone now, replaced with abject terror and pain in Hux’s wide eyes.  The panic of a man who saw his death coming. 

Tightening his fingers, Ben wound the Force around Hux’s throat, cutting off the irritating wails.  He took another step when the world around them suddenly exploded into smoke and fire, concrete dust raining down as Ben was flung backwards, ears ringing.  The eastern wall of the room collapsed, and the screaming engines of the Starfighters that raged over head could be heard clearly from the newly exposed skies above. 

Coughing, Ben struggled to catch his breath, air knocked from his lungs by the explosion of stray laser fire.  A bolt had hit one of the tanks outside, triggering a chain reaction that had leveled half of the tactical command structure. 

Swiping dust from his eyes Ben hauled himself to his feet, side burning with pain, eyes desperately scanning the rubble for his target. 

Hux was trying to crawl away, a metal fragment from one of the twisted panels embedded in his side and streaking dark blood across the floor.  His pitiful sobbing wails led Ben straight to him, shattered legs dragging uselessly behind him.  Ben was reaching for him, fury still raging through his veins when he froze, Hux suddenly irrelevant.

She was here.

Looking down at the ruin of a man before him, Ben let his hands fall back to his sides with a sneer.  “You’re not even worth killing.”  He spat, turning away.  There was nowhere for Hux to run, either the command center would come down around him, or the rebels taking over the base would deal with him.  Either way, the man was dead.

He could feel her drawing closer, a burning point in the Force that made it arc towards her like a magnet.  Ben had always known it would come to this, down to the two of them.  It was their fate, to stand together or to destroy each other.  There was no other option.

Shaking dust from his cloak, Ben hurried towards the center of the sprawling base, to where he had made his throne room.  It was homage and parody of Snoke’s, a place that inspired fear and respect in those who served, and that amused Ben with its sheer irrelevance. 

She would be looking for him, he knew it.  She was the only one they could hope to send against him, the only one that stood a chance.

Excitement drove his steps faster, excitement and a growing sense of inevitability.  It had to end, the dance between them.  Her betrayal had only been one of many, and yet it had haunted him and wounded him more deeply than even those which had come before.  They had been meant for something great, and she had rejected their destiny.

The pain of his injury was a part of him now, Hux’s blade had not hit anything of importance, but the throbbing ache of split flesh and muscle kept him alert.  He knew that soon the loss of blood would slow his steps, but there was an elegant symmetry to it.  Their first battle had been fought under similar circumstances, and now their last would be.

As he moved closer towards the heart of the base his Praetorian Guard fell in around him, crimson armor gleaming under the lights.  They were silent, an honor guard, and they would be witness to the fall of the Rebellion’s last hope. 

He swept into the throne room, the sounds of fighting muted in the large space.  It would take the rebels some time to make it this far, but Ben knew that she was ahead of them, moving nearer.  His guard moved into their positions, circling the dais as he climbed it’s steps and took his place, standing to wait for her. 

Closer… ever closer.

When the doors flew open, blaster fire shattering the locks, Ben snapped out a hand to halt his guard’s advance.  This fight was his.  She stood there in the doorway, a blaster in one hand, lightsaber shining in the other.  Ben’s eyes narrowed, recognizing the green of that blade.  It was Luke’s lightsaber, not Anakin’s—which had been his, which had been hers, which they had torn apart.

Her face was flushed, eyes bright with the heat of battle and adrenaline.  The last time he had seen her, standing at Leia’s deathbed, they had barely looked at one another.  She had been drawn in upon herself, shoulders hunched with sadness.

But this, this was the Rey that he remembered, that drew him like a moth to a flame.  She burned bright in the Force, her Light shining as she lowered the blaster, taking a step towards him.  He met her gaze, and saw the pain and conflict there. Though they were on opposite sides of the room she was right before him, looking up into his eyes with something that he didn’t want to identify.

“Ben…”

He pulled the lightsaber from his belt, the crackling crimson glow springing up between them as though he could cut through the tethers that held them.  She was distant again, though as he took the steps down from the dais two at a time she strode to meet him, her own lightsaber rising. 

“That is not my name!”  He roared at her, using the knifing pain his motion caused as an anchor to keep his anger directed where he needed it to go.  It was a focus, it was a distraction from her.

He met her in the center of the room, lightsaber raised high as hers rose to meet it.  And then winked out.  Barely managing to rein in the shattering strike that would have cut her in two, Ben froze, the unstable energy vibrating through his arms as he watched her slowly lower the inert hilt of the weapon.

She was a foot from him, eyes locked on his, and he could see how fast her heart raced in the pulse of her throat.  Her hands fell to her sides, her shoulders set, and he recognized the fear and determination in her eyes.

“Fight me.”  Ben growled, refusing to let her do this.  They had to end, and he would not let her force his hand. 

“No.”  She said simply.  The word was quiet, shaky but firm.  The lightsaber hilt fell from her fingers, clattering across the floor.  He had seen that look before, on a face other than hers.  A face that trusted too much, that was stupidly willing to give up everything.

Ben’s hands were shaking on the grip of his weapon, confusion shattering through his defenses. 

“I will kill you…”  His voice was like a stranger’s to his own ears, weak, shaking, pleading.  “Fight me, Rey!”

“If you have to kill me, you will.”  She replied, lifting her chin in defiance.  “But I won’t fight you, Ben Solo.”

“You have to!”  He yelled, seeing her flinch, but she did not waver.  The Force swirled around them, Light and Dark, threading through him and confusing him.  It pinned him in place, and he felt his arms go heavy, his anger burning itself out against the steadfastness of her resolve.  He could not do it again. 

Han’s face burned into Ben’s mind, the warm brush of his fingers.  And then it was Rey’s hand that was reaching out, cupping his face, fingers tracing down the scar that she had given him.  His lightsaber fell from numb hands, the wicked glow flickering out as his legs weakened under him.  Not her, anyone but her. 

His knees hit the floor, reeling slightly as the world around him shifted.  Who he was fractured around him, casting him into a darkness that he had no defenses against.  He could not be Kylo Ren, if that meant killing her.  But Ben Solo was gone, and that left him with nothing.

The Force shimmered around them, blending, twisting, and then she was not alone.  Her eyes never moved as she began to reach out to him, they were not there for her to see.  They were his visions to bear, and the weight of their gazes was too heavy. Leia and Luke stood at her shoulders, faces filled with sadness, regret, judgement… forgiveness.  It was not he who needed to be forgiven, this was all their fault!  They had driven him out, betrayed him, turned their backs on him…

“Ben!” She jerked forward, reaching out as though to steady him but as she moved so did the Praetorians, desceding upon them both with crackling energy weapons raised.  Rey’s lightsaber flew to her hand, and Ben flinched as it swung towards him and froze an inch from his shoulder, catching an energy spear meant for him.  He had betrayed them… of course they would kill them both.

Let them.

She was fighting now, a dervish of battle, lightsaber glowing as she defended them both.  His gaze fell to the lightsaber that lay near his knee, the crossguard dark and silent.  Taking it up slowly, he wound the Force around himself, gritting his teeth as he reached down and dug gloved fingers into the wound that Hux had given him.

Pain blazed into his mind, chasing away cobwebs and ghosts, leaving him gasping for air as adrenaline surged through his veins.  He struggled to his feet, watching as Rey drew them away from him, her focus on the battle around her.  Karrakesh was burning, the kingdom was falling.  There was nothing left for him here.

He almost moved to join her, but found himself backing away instead.  She would be the banner that flew for a new order in the galaxy, and whatever he was, he could not be a part of that.  Turning away, Ben stumbled towards the small lift in the corner of the room.  It led down to his private docks, to the fully prepped berth that housed his personal ship.  The Betrayal was a fast, sleek… and unrecognizable.  He could disappear.

Closing the lift gate behind him he turned one last time to look for her through the smoke as an explosion rocked the large room.  The Rebel army was catching up.  He caught her eyes, saw them widen in shock as she made to chase after him, but was intercepted by a last member of his guard.  He saw his name on her lips, and then the lift was lowering, the smoke was closing in, and she was gone.

Ben tightened his grip on the railing of the lift, closing his eyes as everything he thought he knew collapsed around him.  He wanted to scream, to destroy, to fall apart.  But there was no energy left for that.  The blood was soaking the leg of his pants now, and he cursed Hux’s betrayal.  The knife must have struck deeper than he had thought.

He was on autopilot, barely even aware of his actions as the lift came to a shuddering stop, and Ben stared up at the shadow of the Betrayl’s wings.  He stumbled, once again on his knees as the shaking started.  It was over, everything was gone.

“Ben.”  The voice was unfamiliar, deep, almost kind.  He felt hands on his shoulders and looked up, vision blurring as he tried to make out the face of the man who crouched before him.  Gentle eyes, greying hair…  realization stabbed through him like a bolt.

“G-grandfather?”  The words dragged from him, and the ghost smiled.

“Get up, Ben.  This is not where you fall.”

Ben shook his head, hair falling into his eyes as a wave of despair crashed over him.  “I failed you!”  He choked, breath coming hard.  “I tried, grandfather!  I tried to finish what you started, to carry on the legacy of the Empire.  “I’m so sorry I wasn’t strong enough…”

Anakin shook his head, deep sadness filling his eyes.  “No, Ben.  That was never what I wanted for you.  I reached out, but you were closed to me, you chased the wrong part of my path.  The Empire is not the last thing that I tried to do.  I need you to finish what I never had the chance to.  Finish my legacy as Anakin Skywalker, not as Darth Vader.”

Ben looked up at him, confused, shaken.  “I-“

“I died, Ben.  I died before I had the chance, but in those last moments I started something.  I started to tear it all down so that better men than I could build it back up again.  That was what I needed you to finish.”

Confusion tumbled through Ben’s mind, and close on it’s heels a strange cold clarity.  He was no longer Kylo Ren, he was no longer Ben Solo.  But he could still follow orders.  It was easier than thinking for himself.

“Can you do that, Ben?”  Anakin asked quietly.  “Can you finish the real task that I started?”

Ben nodded numbly as Anakin began to fade.  “Yes…  I can try…”

Standing, Ben stumbled up the Betrayl’s ramp and into the small space of her cockpit.  The wide doors of the dock began to slide slowly open, looking out the cliff wall behind the ruins of the base on Karrakesh.  With the last strength that he had, Ben started the Betrayal’s takeoff sequence and plotted a course for deep space.  Trusting the ship to do the rest, Ben let himself fall into the Force, trusting it to help his body heal as he slipped into darkness. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is a companion anthology to our main Reylo work, The Art of Broken Pieces. Here we will be posting all sorts of shorts, background scenes, character introductions, our imaginings of how things have played out in the Broken Pieces-verse.


End file.
